I spent much of this past week weekend clearing the stuff out my office, where I’d previously mastered the art of “faux clean” by neatly stacking and packing an astonishing array of junk (mostly older or unused technology products) in my closet. This work followed a number of excursions into the likewise-stuffed unfinished part of the basement, where I keep the boxes for all this stuff. I want to get rid of all the physical stuff—photo books, gadgets, whatever—that ties us down. It’s happening slowly, and is an ongoing process, but I made a lot of progress this weekend.

I also spent some more time learning Swift, which I’m coming to see as a modern replacement for Visual Basic. By which I mean, something that is just as powerful as a “real” language (C# or, in this case, Objective-C), at least for most, but offers superior readability, maintainability, and simplicity. I wish Microsoft had made it: The worst thing about Swift is you pretty much have to use a Mac. (For now. I know it’s open sourced, but all the online learning is based around making iOS apps.)

Google is sprinting to attract its “next billion” users. For the most part, these are people in the developing world; people who will go online, for the very first time, using one of Google’s Android-powered handsets. Which puts Google in the position of being seen as both a corporate NSA and modern East India Company.

Pichai clearly understands there are all sorts of things we don’t want anyone to know. “We need to design systems so that we give people a very easy way to say, ‘I need to be off the grid, I need this to be private,’” he says over a smashed avocado at the Wynn, moments after being buttonholed by Barry Diller in a nearby hallway. Can Sundar Pichai transform Google’s image? Can he make you actually like Google again?

Worth reading.

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And a few headlines that made me smile. OK, frown …

“Microsoft Made a Special Version of Windows 10 for China’s Government”